MIDDLETOWN >> The gym inside Keigwin Middle School was abuzz with activity one recent August morning as a swarm of adolescents in yellow T-shirts flit around, tackling one another.

It’s a Thursday and the 40 or so boys and girls taking part in this year’s Camp Colter are understandably more excited than normal. It’s the last day of the wrestling camp and it will culminate this particular afternoon with a set of real matches followed by a pizza party.

Until then, the kids are honing their moves on one another under the watchful eyes of about a dozen coaches, including Mark Fong and Mike Cunningham.

Both men are wrestling coaches at area schools, Fong at Keigwin and Cunningham at Xavier High School. Both also formerly coached Colter Abely, a middle and high school wrestler who is the namesake of this annual summer camp.

Colter was a 2010 graduate of Xavier who died at age 20 in a car crash. His parents wanted a way to memorialize him and, working with the Community Foundation of Middlesex County and the Middletown Public Schools, founded an annual golf tournament that raises funds to help pay for the one-week wrestling camp for kids ages 8 to 12.

Fong, who coached Colter when he was a student at Keigwin, said the camp, now in its second year, is a fitting memorial to his former athlete.

“Colter loved wrestling and he loved working with kids,” he said.

The goal of the camp, he added, is to help promote wrestling in schools, since it’s a sport often overshadowed by more popular ones, such as football or soccer. The program also aims to help kids mature into young adulthood and teach them key lessons, such as courage, the value of hard work and overall sportsmanship in life.

“Wrestling really helped Colter to mature when he was younger,” Fong said. “It takes a lot of courage to get out there and wrestle. It’s just you and one other person and there’s nowhere to hide. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about putting yourself out there.”

For 11-year-old Teddy Isaacson, the camp is fun and caters to beginners as well as experienced wrestlers.

“It’s not real competitive. I like how it works on fundamentals and skills,” he said.

This is 12-year-old Ralph Barbas second year taking part in Camp Colter. The seventh-grader who wrestles in school said he likes that there’s a diversity of kids in the program.

“I like that it can teach all different age groups,” he said. “I’m learning a lot of new things.”

Cunningham said Colter was an affable student at Xavier, someone who liked just about everyone and kids in particular.

“He’d be looking at all this with a smile on his face,” Cunningham said.